City anti-graffiti squad completes first project

The city of Erie's anti-graffiti squad is now in action. The squad -- members of a task force appointed by Mayor Joe Sinnott -- completed its first project Thursday, removing graffiti on a wall near the northeast corner of State Street and the Bayfront Parkway. Sinnott held a news conference there to announce the formation of the task force and to show the removal work. "To help beautify the city, we need to start getting rid of some of this," the mayor said.  Erie 3rd Ward District Judge Tom Carney, who will head the task force, said the group will also seek community help to identify vandals and try to suggest tougher fines for violations. "We think graffiti's ugly,"he said. "It's criminal in nature, and we're going to work our hardest to abate it." Carney was the catalyst for the task force, having approached the mayor about it, particularly about graffiti on industrial buildings on the West 12th Street corridor in the 3rd Ward. "I just showed an interest that I'd really like to see something done, and the mayor challenged me" to form the task force, Carney said. Another task force member, Christopher D. Hitz, president of Advanced Drying and Restorations, has volunteered the firm's services in removing graffiti. Its equipment used a baking-soda-based abrasive to remove the graffiti from the wall Thursday."We have the equipment, we have the knowledge, and we have the staff to be able to take care of these problems to be part of beautifying the city," he said. "We're going to be doing a lot more in the next couple months."Another task force member is Dennis Braendel II, vice president of Braendel Painting and Services, which will assist in restoring walls, signs and other surfaces covered with graffiti. Other task force members include John Tretter, business agent for Laborers Local 603; downtown businessman Tom "Tippy" Dworzanski; Wally Brown, coordinator of the Little Italy Neighborhood Crime Watch Group; David J. Grabelski, assistant professor at the Institute for Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College; and Maria L. Garase, assistant professor at Gannon University's Criminal Justice Program. Grabelski said Mercyhurst is doing an analysis of graffiti and researching successful anti-graffiti programs."Nothing we do here is going to stop graffiti," he said. "All you can do is minimize it."Garase said Gannon will work on the analysis, but it also will be surveying local businesses about graffiti. The university will also have volunteers work on graffiti removal and speak at middle and high schools about prevention. Sinnott said the city's recent arrest of vandals in connection with spray-painting helps deter graffiti, but he said it's difficult to stop."It's a hard problem to deal with," he said. "But we've got to start dealing with it and do the best we can to stay out in front of it and combat it."